Catacombs, Sacre Coeur, Moulin Rouge

Our friends Melissa and Caitlin came to visit, so we got to do some extra sightseeing around Paris. We went to the Eiffel Tower a few times and got to relax a little without having to get prepared for a weekend trip. Caitlin had to leave early Saturday, but Melissa stuck around for the weekend and knew of some cool attractions we hadn't been to yet.

One was the Catacombs, which is a huge collection of underground tunnels where the bones of thousands of people are kept. It was originally a mine for the rock that built some of the older buildings in Paris. As the city grew, land was at a premium so they started moving the bones from different cemeteries into the tunnels. Each cemetery has its own section. It became an official ossuary and the bones and skulls are stacked very neatly in designs along the tunnel walls. It's a very cool place and you get a combination of geology, history, and mining knowledge. And bones. Lots and lots of bones.

Way up on the hill in the northern part of Paris is La Basilique du Sacre Coeur. It's a beautiful church and takes a ton of steps to get to. It took almost 40 years to build and is one of the most impressive churches I've seen. There's an amazing view overlooking Montmartre below and the rest of the city beyond.

Then going down the hill you transition from the Montmartre section to Pigalle, where many famous artists used to live, such as Picasso and Van Gogh. The main boulevard has a number of adult shops and theaters, and it's here that you'll find the legendary Moulin Rouge. It's a bit less impressive than the movies make it out to be:

There's so much to see and do in Paris that it was nice to have another weekend to spend here.

More pictures in the gallery.

London

Last weekend we took a train over to ye olde Londontown. Of course we got stuck on the train for an extra two hours because there was a problem in the Chunnel. We finally made it to our hotel in the late afternoon and went to a nearby pub to get some food. The food wasn't great, but I finally got some fish and chips with mushy peas.

Then it was off to go sightseeing! From our previous experiences, I already knew that many things in Europe look much cooler at night, so we weren't deterred from going to see some of the things on our list. We started at Big Ben and Westminster, and made our way over to the London Eye. We were walking on the bridge across the Thames when it started raining. It wasn't too bad at first, but by the time we got to the pedestrian bridge to get back across it was raining sideways really hard and we got soaked. The kind of freezing rain that hurts when it hits your face. But we didn't want to just sit in the hotel all night, so we pushed on along a path that followed the Thames, and saw many of the bridges and buildings we wanted to see. The rain stopped after a while and it turned into a nice night. But the sights were farther apart than we originally thought, so after a while we called it a night and went back to the hotel.

Sunday we finally saw the sun! We started off at Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately they weren't doing a changing of the guard that day, so there wasn't a whole lot to see.

We headed through the Horse Parade to Trafalgar Square, with it's impressive obelisk, lion statues, fountains, and giant blue rooster.

 We saw London Tower, which has some great history to it, then spent a bit of time on Tower Bridge with its wonderful view of the area around it. There's such a contrast between the older stone castles and bridges and the new huge glass buildings like the Gherkin and the Shard and City Hall. It's an interesting combination of very different architectures but really shows the history of the city and how it's changed over a long period of time.

Then we headed over to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was beautiful. I've been in more churches and cathedrals on this trip than I've ever seen before in my life and they continue to impress me with their amazing architecture and construction and history.

We had a late train, so we killed some more time near Big Ben and Westminster Abbey and enjoyed a nice little break by the Thames before heading to the train station to catch our ride back to Paris. Next time we'll have to spend more time doing things. We were a little rushed and there's so much to see!

Many more pictures in the gallery!

Eiffel Tower & Sgabetti

Last night was the first really clear night since we've been in Paris, so we went to the Trocadéro to see the Eiffel Tower light up. It's really an amazing sight, and the tower sparkles every hour on the hour. The Trocadéro has a perfect unobstructed view across the Seine and is the perfect place to take pictures. The last time we visited, the top of the tower was lost in the fog, but last night was crystal clear and we could see the beacon at the top.

After that we headed a couple blocks away to Sgabetti, just off Place de Mexico. It's an excellent little Italian restaurant, and the food is delicious. It wasn't very crowded and we had good service. I had Ravioli Sgabetti, which was awesome raviolis with spinach and ricotta in a mascarpone sauce with mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and arugala; and Marie had Linguine Mare, which was linguine with tomato sauce, baby squid, clams, mussels, and shrimp. Both were amazing and we definitely plan on going back.

If you're looking for Italian food in Paris, I highly recommend this place.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is awesome and I've never seen so many canals and bicycles before in my life! The city itself is amazing and the integration of bike lanes everywhere is impressive. Of course, as unwitting pedestrians, we had to pay special attention to where we were walking, and look for bikes and mopeds as well as cars (we had a few close calls).

When we arrived it was a rainy, cloudy day. As we started walking the rain was just stopping so we decided to take a canal tour, as we had read that it was a great way to orient yourself in the city. Long story short, it wasn't what I had expected; it was more of a ride around the city than the 'tour' that I had wanted. I was a little disappointed but still got some good pictures, and it was a good way to see a lot of Amsterdam quickly. We were very short on time and would never have seen some of the things we got to see from the boat, such as the EYE Film Institute of the Netherlands:

After the tour we went to the Rijksmuseum (National Museum), which was nearby and has the big 'I amsterdam' sign. Of course, this was the most crowded place we saw. The line to get into the museum was super long, and it was difficult to get a good shot of the sign because everyone was trying to get a picture up close. There was also an ice skating rink right behind it!

After getting some pictures (the line for the museum was too long) we wandered off and happened on a restaurant called Little Buddha for lunch. We were the only ones in the restaurant, but it was spacious, beautifully decorated, and had delicious food. We could tell it's the kind of place that gets very crowded later, but it was nice to have the place to ourselves.

We went to the hotel to check in and drop off our bags. The hotel was very nice, and next to what looked like a business district. The only problem was that it was almost at the end of the line of one of the trams, and took a good 20 minutes to get to a station where we could transfer to another tram to get into the city.

Trying to figure out the tram system was tough, although we finally figured it out towards the end of the trip. If you're going to any place that's off the main island (museums, our hotel, etc) you'll probably need to take the tram. They don't come nearly often enough, and the station names aren't listed on the maps at the stops or on the tram, so it's hard to tell which station to get off at sometimes. We spent as much time on the trams as doing actual sightseeing. If you have to transfer lines you could end up waiting a while, especially later at night.

We made the trek back to town, stopping at Rembrandtplein, which has a huge statue of the artist, as well as a bronze representation of his famous Night Watch painting. The square is surrounded by restaurants and cafés and is a nice place to hang out for a while, although we didn't have time for that leisure. (Note: know the difference between café and coffee shop so you don't pick the wrong one. Cafés have coffee and food and coffee shops have drugs. Of course, some have both.)

Then we headed into the main island to grab a bite to eat, and went to check out the Red Light District. It's certainly an experience you won't get in America: there were tons of novelty shops, coffee shops, clubs, sex shops, and, of course, prostitute window shopping. We wandered a few of the streets, which were packed with people, but didn't go into any of the places. It's a little overwhelming since we weren't sure what to expect, but overall it's not an evil, dangerous place that some make it out to be. Everything is tightly regulated by the government, and aside from drunk tourists we didn't see anything gross or threatening in the street itself. Many coffee shops have impressive neon signs, like this one we passed on Rembrandtplein:

Getting back to the hotel took a couple hours, since we were still trying to figure out the trams. If you ever plan a trip to Amsterdam, make sure you're close to one of the lines that goes directly to Centraal Station and doesn't require a transfer. Also, they won't let you bring your late-night falafel with you on the tram.

Sunday, we got to the Van Gogh Museum shortly after it opened and didn't have to wait in any lines, which was nice. The museum is four floors of Van Gogh's work and work by other artists that inspired/were inspired by him. I won't even attempt to describe the artworks, as I have no basis for doing so, but I learned a lot about Van Gogh's techniques and inspirations, which were very interesting. Unfortunately, his most famous works are all at other more prominent museums, but this one had a lot of his early work and many lesser-known works from similar collections as the famous ones. Strangely, the museum skipped any discussion of his personal life or mental issues, simply referring to a time that he voluntarily checked into a mental institution. They focused on his artistic techniques, but his art was greatly influenced by emotion and ignoring it takes away some insight and understanding of the works.

We had a relatively early flight, so we didn't get to explore some of the areas we wanted due to lack of time. After Van Gogh, we made our way up the main island to Centraal Station to catch a train to the airport. Amsterdam is a wonderful city (although the trams are frustrating at times), and I already want to go back to get to more things on my to-see-in-Amsterdam list.

As always, there are many more pictures in the gallery!